He felt in his waistcoat pocket and finally handed a visiting card to Elkan, who glanced at it hurriedly and with trembling fingers passed it on to his wife, for it was inscribed in old English type as follows:
+==============================+ | | | =Mr. Joseph Kammerman= | | | | =Fostoria Hotel= | | | | =New York= | | | +==============================+
"Once and for all, I am telling you, Volkovisk, either you would got to play music here or quit!" Marculescu cried at eleven o'clock that evening. "The customers is all the time kicking at the stuff you give us."
"What d'ye mean, stuff?" Max Merech protested. "That was no stuff, Mr. Marculescu. That was from Brahms a trio, and it suits me down to the ground."
"Suits you!" Marculescu exclaimed. "Who in blazes are you?"
"I am _auch_ a customer, Mr. Marculescu," Max replied with dignity.
"_Yow_, a customer!" Marculescu jeered. "You sit here all night on one cup coffee. A customer, _sagt er_! A loafer--that's what you are! It ain't you I am making my money from, Merech--it's from them _Takeefim_[A] uptown; and they want to hear music, not Brahms. So you hear what I am telling you, Volkovisk! You should play something good--like 'Wildcat Rag'."
"Wait a minute, Mr. Marculescu," Max interrupted. "Do you mean to told me them lowlife bums in front there, which makes all that _Geschrei_ over 'Dixerlie' and such like _Narrischkeit_, is _Takeefim_ yet?"
"I don't want to listen to you at all, Merech!" Marculescu shouted.
"I don't care if you want to listen to me _oder_ not," Merech said. "I was a customer here when you got one little store _mit_ two waiters; and it was me and all the other fellers you are calling loafers now what give you, with our few pennies, your first start. Now you are too good for us with your uptown _Takeefim_. Why, them same _Takeefim_ only comes here, in the first place, because they want to see what it looks like in one of the East Side cafés, where they got such good music and such interesting characters, which sits and drinks coffee and plays chess _und Tarrok_."
He glared at the enraged Marculescu and waved his hands excitedly.
"What you call loafers they call interesting characters, Mr. Marculescu," he continued, "and what you call stuff they call good music--and that's the way it goes, Mr. Marculescu. You are a goose which is killing its own golden eggs!"